Camera shy man and his cat - fur on and off the body; a tiny bus in India...US and India come together in one little baby

I meet many people when I walk about and one of them I shall call Bart, who I see often, but never photograph, because he is very camera shy. We stand and talk about all kinds of things, from his stint in the military to his recent heart attack to my shoulder injury, but mostly we talk about his cats, Varmit and Jesse James.

When I got there today he was a bit  worried about Varmit. I was not certain how long he had been out there with the cats, but he said that Varmit had disappeared. He had not seen him for quite awhile, whereas Jesse was staying close.

As soon as he said this, I saw Varmit looking at me through the bushes and grasses. "There he is!" I said, pointing right at the little creature you see here.

Actually, I took this picture first, but I wanted to introduce "Bart" right away, even if you can not see his face, but only his pants, shoes and socks.

So the pictures are out of order.

I don't care. Life is often out of order.

Varmit walks to Dan. I never did see Jesse James. As you can see, Varmit is wearing his fur, just the way a cat ought to. 

I walked on and soon, up ahead aways, saw something furry that looked dead and mangled, like maybe it had been run over by several cars. I wondered if it was a dog or a cat, but when I got close, I saw that it was a bit of moose fur.

So what was this chunk of moose fur doing here? How had the moose been killed? When? It is way out of season. Did someone poach the moose? Did some dogs kill a calf? Did the moose die of natural causes and then get torn up by dogs?

Was it shot legally in moose season, and then maybe this piece of fur got frozen somewhere, or was stored somewhere and now it is here?

Did I know this moose?

Did I photograph it when it was alive?

I didn't know. I will never know. And neither will you.

Unless it was poached, and you are the poacher and you happen to also be a reader of my blog.

Arrest yourself then, you damn poacher! Turn yourself in!

These dogs were dressed in their fur, just like dogs ought to be.

I have been a little frustrated about my India take, because I simply have not had any time to delve into it and edit it and, for two weeks time, I have a lot of material. A lot. I could blog India regularly all summer long.

And I still have two ceremonies from Sandy's wedding day yet to edit and post!

No time!

So today, just to keep the idea of India alive, I picked a folder at random, dropped at random into a point near the middle, drug about 10 images to my editing program and then checked to see what popped up, so that I could post it.

And this little bus popped up. It was so small that it almost should not be called a bus, but it was too big to be a van. So I call it a bus.

And this beautiful lady was sitting right there, towards the back.

A little bit in front of her was this young girl.

And then there was this man in a turbin, and a young boy.

And this is the place that they had come to visit. It is called Aihole, and it is a magnificent series of ruins of temples and other buldings constructed in the sixth through eighth centuries. These are school children who had come on a field trip to observe some of their own heritage first hand.

Hopefully, before the summer ends, I will be able blog it better.

And here is a little bit of America and India blended together; of my family and Soundarya’s family, united as one family in the ultimate way: 

Ada Lakshmi Iyer, the baby that I told you about last night, in the hands of her father, Vivek, my nephew-in-law, but I just call him Nephew.

My sister, Mary Ann, Ada Lakshmi's gramma, took the picture. She did not send me one with my niece Khena, her daughter and Ada's mom.

Had Vivek and Khena never came together, none of this would have ever happened. I would not even know Soundarya existed and I certainly would not have photographed her wedding. I would probably never even have stepped into India, not even once, over my entire life.

Unbearable thought. Just unbearable.

Thank you, Khena and Vivek, for bringing us all together.

And congratulations!

That's a lot of hair on your beautiful daughter!

Comments

[Sandy]

Wow! Too good!